


i made broken look beautiful

by bowlingfornerds



Series: red [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, Keith-Centric, M/M, Mild Angst, honestly its kind of the same universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-18 23:59:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9408422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bowlingfornerds/pseuds/bowlingfornerds
Summary: Keith was never empty, he was just less full than he would’ve liked.Then he met Takashi Shirogane.A Keith-centric fic, inspired by season 2 of Voltron.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've been saying I'll write Voltron fic for so long so here it is, inspired by Michelle's (sheithlions on tumblr) fics and her screaming at me in our chat.
> 
> I love my boy and this is for him.
> 
> (title taken from one of lana's (sunsetablaze on tumblr) poems though i can't say which because there isn't a title and linking isn't working so i'm awful)

Keith was never empty, he was just less full than he would’ve liked.

He had no memories from before he was dropped into foster care; just a golden haze of city buildings and vague, distant smiles. After that, he remembers everything. Keith could remember the sounds of his social workers’ pens on their clipboards, filling out form after form; he could remember the feel of every car seat of every foster parent who’d driven him to their home; every _you’ll be cared for here, are you comfortable?, it’s just until we find you something permanent_ that was fed to him through heartfelt stares and clammy hands on his shoulders.

He wasn’t empty, no – he had a Gameboy as a gift from his favourite social worker, a lady named Laura who refused to give up on him no matter what, and he had his small stuffed toy rabbit that came with him when he was left in the first place.

For the longest of time, Keith thought that those two possessions were all he needed.

Then he met Takashi Shirogane.

The Shirogane family took him in as a foster child when he was eleven, and Keith could remember the way they showed him around the house, out into the garden, the treehouse, the swing set, the bean bag chair in the living room (the latter of which he would, in future, fight for the right to sit in against his foster brother, and win approximately forty percent of the time).

He could also remember Takashi – because Takashi was someone he’d never forget.

“Shiro,” Takashi had corrected when they were introduced on Keith’s first day at the house, with social worker Laura watching closely from the doorway to the living room. “No one calls me Takashi.”

Shiro was older by three years, with dark hair and a bright smile. He looked as if he always knew something Keith didn’t, possibly about the salt in the sugar pot, the cling film over the toilet bowl, the soy sauce that _somehow_ ended up in his mother’s coffee (although it was never proven to be Shiro, despite the lack of other suspects).

Keith had never been so whole as when he lived with the Shirogane family, because he’d never felt like he’d had a brother before. A brother who checked over his grazes after falling off his bike, despite Keith not shedding a single tear (“you don’t even seem _bothered_ by the hole in your leg, are you actually a robot?”), or a brother who took him out for ice cream or helped with his homework or – eventually – helped to sneak him into Galaxy Garrison to try out the simulator.

Keith had never felt as whole as he did on that night.

He was fifteen and really, surely, absolutely wasn’t supposed to even _be_ in the Garrison – they’d locked up for the night and all. But there he was, and there was Shiro, almost _giggling_ to himself at the prospect of breaking the rules this way.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” Shiro asked as they crept down the darkened hallway. When Keith was eleven, he would’ve said a cowboy (he always wanted to have those standoffs and the ends of old Western movies), at twelve a secret agent (Shiro introduced him to James Bond and he never looked back), at thirteen it was a professional athlete (although he never could make up his mind about which sport), and at fourteen he’d decided on a race car driver (Shiro once said he had a _need for speed_ , laughed and then frowned at Keith’s blank expression, before vowing to introduce him to another series of films he needed to watch).

At fifteen, in the Galaxy Garrison, dressed in the uniform of Shiro’s friend, Matt, because they were about the same size and apparently he needed to blend in, Keith said: “a pilot” and Shiro smiled.

“Of what? Helicopters? Planes?”

“Fighter class,” Keith replied. “I want to go into space, like you.”

“I’m not going to be a fighter class,” Shiro said, although it wasn’t really the point.

“You’re going to lead space missions,” Keith shrugged. “One day, I want to be on one of them.” They were nearing the simulator – Shiro had diverted them to the fighter pod one, rather than the support flight one.

“You want to fight?” Shiro asked, even though he already knew the answer. Keith smiled and nodded.

“And protect. That’s the important part.”

“Who will you be protecting?” Shiro reached over to the control panel and began pressing at the buttons. Keith’s eyes widened as the lights turned on and the simulator began to hum.

“The Earth, the human race – Mum, Dad, you.” Keith met Shiro’s eye for a moment before looking away again.

“You’re going to protect me one day?”

“Yeah,” Keith replied, stepping towards the simulator, where the door began to open. “Just like you protect me.”

Maybe it was that conversation that made Keith feel like he belonged, like he’d found a place, or maybe it was the simulator that gave Keith the drive and the urge to fly. It felt so _real_ , piloting a ship through outer space and dodging the asteroids that came close. He hit them once or twice, but kept going until the simulator was shaking and he was laughing and honestly he’d never felt like he’d found his calling but maybe this was it: maybe being a pilot was exactly what he was meant to do.

-

Only a few years later did his best friend and brother disappear in space and Keith felt emptier than ever before. He went home for the weekend, sat silently in his foster parents’ living room and stared at the photos on the wall. Their weeping began to itch at his skin and before he left for the Garrison again he piled Shiro’s old clothes into his bag – the ones that still smelled like him, the ones that he could picture Shiro wearing so vividly, the ones that had holes from too much use.

The next month he wore them every night in bed, crying for the first time in years. He never cried when he fell off his bike, when another family dropped him off at the foster home, when people didn’t want him or when he was kicked out of school. Actually, Keith was sure he’d never cried a day in his life: not until Takashi Shirogane was declared missing in action and he didn’t know how to keep going without him.

The Garrison was lenient at first, they knew his brother was gone and Keith was prone to outbursts of anger and grief at the slightest mention of the only person he actually _spoke_ to in the entire base. But eventually enough became enough after simulations where he purposefully ignored commands, went on his own routes and plans, swore out the commanders and the entire universe for sticking him with the life that he had.

“You are one of the most talented pilots I have ever seen,” he was told on the day he was expelled. “It’s honestly a grave injustice that such talent was given to someone so insolent. And to be related to Takashi Shirogane! I would’ve thought that with _two_ prodigies, great journeys could’ve been planned – you’re a disgrace to the Garrison and to the Shirogane name.”

Shirogane wasn’t even his name, but Keith still brought down the bookcase. When he left, the window was broken, the files were scattered and he was being dragged out by armed security.

He didn’t think it was possible to feel emptier, but there he was.

-

“What are you thinking about?” Shiro asked, sitting down next to Keith. He was sat just outside the Castle of Lions on the planet Arus. The sun was setting across the horizon, painting the sky in shades of oranges and reds that Keith felt as if he were breathing in. Keith didn’t reply at first, picking his words carefully as he finally turned towards Shiro.

“You were gone for so long,” he said at last. Shiro’s face fell, and Keith noticed his jaw tense, so he reached out, placing his hand atop Shiro’s on the ground between them. “I’m not- I was thinking about how you were gone, and how I struggled to cope with it.”

“I never meant to be gone so long,” Shiro replied quietly, as if he had to justify everything that happened to him.

“I know – I don’t blame you, of course I don’t. But there was a memorial service, and Mum cried and we all had to lay these ugly white flowers on the shrine – and your little cousin Maisy was just complaining really loudly about how you would’ve preferred to the yellow ones – which, you would’ve. We all knew it, even when it was happening, we all knew you would’ve wanted to yellow ones, but there we were with the stupid white ones, pretending that we were just honouring you, not mourning your death-”

Shiro suddenly moved closer, pulling Keith against his side and wrapping his arms around the younger boy’s body. For a moment, Keith didn’t move, then he relaxed into the hug, breathing in the feeling of being so close to Shiro again. When Shiro pulled away, he swiped gently at Keith’s cheek, his finger coming away wet.

Keith hadn’t cried since that first month Shiro disappeared.

“I’m back now – we’re, we’re together now, Keith. I’m not leaving you, you know that, right?” Keith hesitated before nodding. “And I know this may not have been exactly what we’d planned to do with our lives, defending the galaxy and all – but it’s what happened, it’s where we’re at.”

“Do you think, after we defeat the Galra, we’ll be able to go home?”

“To your little shack in the desert?” Shiro asked, a smile playing about his lips. Keith exhaled a laugh.

“No – not that place. It was lonely there. No, I meant _home_ home. Your – our parents, they don’t know you’re even alive. I want to see their face when you walk through the front door.” Shiro smiled then, looking out towards the sunset.

“What about you? They won’t be seeing you for a while.”

“Yeah but they’re used to that,” Keith replied. “Going radio silent is how I show that I care.” Shiro laughed and Keith found a strange feeling bubbling up in his stomach. It was distantly familiar to him, but he couldn’t exactly pinpoint what it was that he was feeling; like he’d felt it a long time before and only now did it want to come back.

“I’m glad you’re back,” Keith said at last. “It’s nice to have a family again.”

“I think we might have to expand a little,” Shiro replied. “We’re _paladins_ now-“

“Ah, yes, the lions are what, our sisters? Estranged aunts?”

“I would say pets but they seem far more dangerous that Topsy the household bunny rabbit,” Shiro grinned.

“I dunno,” Keith laughed, finally feeling light in his chest, as if a weight had been lifted and the universe might just be sending something good his way. “If I remember right, Topsy bit you the first day we got her.”

“My most prominent scar,” Shiro said, dry, holding up his hand to look at the tiny, faint crescent shape by his thumb.

Keith hadn’t felt whole in a long time, if ever. He’d always felt like something was missing, like there was a space between his ribs where something was meant to lie. On a distant planet, with the sun setting across the horizon, Shiro – _his family_ – sitting next to him as they laughed, Keith felt that gap fill with a type of happiness he’d never experienced before.

Keith was whole, and it felt _right_.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading!
> 
> If you enjoyed this fic pretty please hit the kudos button and leave me a comment! Even if it's just one word! Thanks!


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